


Morning Monotony Madness

by Townycod13



Series: Daytime [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: M/M, coffee shop au... kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 00:41:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Townycod13/pseuds/Townycod13
Summary: The regularity of his life was causing an uneasy tempo in his veins.





	Morning Monotony Madness

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by panaceaa! <3 (psst give her fics a read!)

“Good morning.” Token greets.

“Mornin’.” David responds.

Dip the tea leaves in the scalding water, bounce a few times, and don’t forget to smile.

“How was your weekend?”

“The usual. You? How are the kids?”

Open the MacBook, it’s provided by the company and always loads quickly. Password, then clock into the system.

With a click of the button another work day begins.

“They’re great, Laura is teething though so sleep is a thing of the past.”

Polite laughter.

“Sounds like a pain, I don’t know how you do it man.”

The voices are so plain and rehearsed.

Any minute now someone is going to comment on the weather.

“Wow, it’s really been getting warmer lately.”

Roll credits.

Any other morning and Kyle wouldn’t mind the mundanity of his office life. It was simple and it all made sense. 

His coworkers were kind, he was good at his job, and his paycheck as generous.

The perfect life.

“Yeah, at least it’s not raining. Poor Clyde was dying.”

More polite laughter.

“He really loves cycling these days, doesn’t he?”

A rhetorical question that everyone knows the answer to. Polite and boring conversation to establish a normal routine of harmony.

Every morning. Every day.

The world is the same and the simplicity of it is comforting, in a way, and everything about it is just  _ good _ .

And this morning, this morning alone, Kyle Broflovski hates it.

He wouldn’t be able to put it to words if asked. Click-clack the keys of a thousand keyboards, and look there’s Wendy glaring at Leslie from across the office. Everyone knows the pattern that will inevitably result in one or both of them competing over a project.

Clyde had to take paid leave to visit his family so the desk across from him was empty of the air-headed chatter that would normally fill the air between them.

Scott in the next office over will be sure to drop in and say hi though, he’s the friendly sort that is always concerned with everyone's well being.

David and Token will continue their mild-mannered conversation for the rest of the day between work. Occasionally they’ll speak of shared political views, or sometimes it will be about the next time Nichole is inviting David over for dinner. It’s all rather repetitive.

Was it possible they were all just stuck in a Groundhog’s-Day-like cycle everyday?

It felt that way. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. The same pattern everyday.

The same people everyday.

He’d seen Clyde whom he shared no common interests with more than he’d seen his best friend in the past month.

He’d spoken with David more than his own brother.

And it didn’t normally bother him in the least. This was the lifestyle he’d chosen after all.

He was good at his job and the boring pleasantries didn’t normally  _ grate _ .

“How are you?”

“I’m good, and you?”

“Pretty good.”

One could hear the polite smiles behind the words. The familiar dance that occurred everyday and every single person knew their part.

Any tiny steps out of line were swiftly dealt with more polite smiles and small kindnesses.

So why was he so struck by the simple misstep from a barista?

\--

He hadn’t been planning to return after yesterday.

He normally made his own coffee in his ridiculously expensive coffee maker his father had gifted him. A congratulatory gift for making it into the firm of his choice.

It felt patronizing but it was also useful and delicious.

The tic-toc of the old clock on the wall marked the hipster establishment for what it was: doomed for destruction when Starbucks finally gained the monopoly it so desired over the human races ability to stay awake.

The staff is cheerful and the coffee is good.

There’s no sign of the blond from yesterday though. A twitchy and somewhat alarmingly aggressive barista has taken his place.

Kyle decides he shouldn’t come back here.

The simple décor and the kind atmosphere is homey in the city-scape. It’s a nice breath of fresh air...but it’s not what he’s looking for.

It’s not what made Monday so unforgettable.

\--

Friday nights are for staying up late with a good book. It’s been his policy since grad school. He had let himself get dragged into more than a few shenanigans in his youth and all he currently aimed for was consistency and a way to spend his weekends without a pounding headache, lethargy, and the opportunity to be covered in vomit. Or, as he had on some more unpleasant occasions, to escape the opportunity of not knowing where he is at all.

Few people are granted the privilege of disrupting this tight schedule of rest and relaxation.

Stan was one of them. Of course Stan was one of them.

He was curled up in a ball and explaining his recent heartbreak with excruciating detail and Kyle, the good friend he is, wasn’t currently strangling him for repeating the same mistakes he always did.

“It’s okay, dude, there are plenty of fish in the sea.”

Cliché and simple advice. No point in getting creative when he would be having this same conversation with his childhood friend after another brush of time had passed them by. As if nothing ever really changed and every day really was the same day on repeat but with minor details tweaked.

“I don’t  _ want _ other fish. I want  _ him _ .”

Kyle hummed in response, a comforting pat on the back as Stan drowned his sorrows in another shot of hot cocoa.

The hardest stuff that Kyle had in his possession, if he was honest.

“He just—makes the world  _ different _ , like seeing him just… shit, Kyle, I’m no good with words. I don’t know how to explain it.” Stan breathed out with his eyes far away, “Like suddenly I can see color with him.”

Normally this sort of whiney poetic bull that Stan would blubber out between whimpers of despair meant very little to Kyle. He didn’t date currently and he certainly had never dated with the romanticism that Stan lived and breathed.

Today though, his mind flashed towards Monday morning with an uncomfortable certainty.

How ridiculous. He pushed the thought away in favor of searching for another cliché to comfort his friend with.

Stan had been dating this boy for months and knew the other intimately. It wasn’t the same as being struck by the twinkle of mischief in a pair of blue eyes.

\--

The phone in the office rings, Leslie picks it up with that particular professional voice that grates on Wendy’s nerves. There will be a passive aggressive fight later.

Everyone is working and intent. Clyde is staring into space and grinning from time to time like an idiot.

The new mail-girl giving out the latest junk that people need to receive at work instead of in the peace of their own homes.

Kyle doesn’t know her name yet but she seems like a sweet kid. Working part-time while attending university.

“Hi,” she greets a bit too cheerfully, not quite in harmony with the polite monotony of an office. Not yet. “I have your mail, Mr. Broflovski.”

There’s a twinkle to her words that is just out of beat with the rest of the monotony of the rest of everything and it makes his heart ache. He smiles at the sweetness with more sincerity than he normally would.

“Thank you...” he pauses meaningfully for her name but she just smiles like this song and dance is still unfamiliar to her. He presses on because he’s dodged missteps before, “I’m sorry, I never caught your name.”

“Oh!” She giggles, a light and kind thing and it drives him nuts trying to think of what it reminds him of, “I’m Karen, nice to meet you, Mr. Broflovski!”

She holds out her hand boldly and squeezes his just a tad tighter than expected in a firm exchange.

It’s so out of touch with the lifestyle he was accustomed too somehow.

What a nice kid.

\--

It’s only after another monthly cycle of the same days before he sees another glimmer of the source of his newfound melancholy.

He just happened to be leaving his apartment at the same time his neighbor was signing for a package. He wouldn’t have even spared the exchange a glance if he hadn’t heard the voice.

“Where do I sign?” Craig’s no-nonsense nasal grumble has never been a fun greeting in the morning.

“Anywhere you fucking want, my dude, but I generally advise above the dotted line.”

There it was. The discord in the daily dance.

He turned just in time to see Craig flipping off the retreating postal employee. There’s a certain bounce to his step and a hum on his breath that Kyle wanted to call out to.

To who?

He doesn’t know a thing about the man.

It’s probably not even the same barista from that Monday. It was his imagination.

By the time the world has returned to its normal pace, Craig was giving him a look.

He scurried away, unwilling to face the inevitable scathing questions his neighbor might come up with.

He spent the rest of his day resisting the temptation to order a package, just to see. 

 

Just to check.

\--

Ike doesn’t come to see him often. Super genius boy was too busy working on his doctorate while most were still working out a major and had no time for his grandpa of an older brother.

It counted as a disruption to his endless days of the same then. It was a welcome change of pace and his brother’s monotone humor would always be a refreshing take on the simple questions.

“Hey, Ike, how’ve you been holding up?”

The overworked university student fixed him with the haunted look that all grad students eventually develop. “Still alive.”

Kyle nodded knowingly, he had been there, he knew what it was like.

Still, despite the change of pace from his normal routine, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

In a way this was a routine.

The routine of his brother and him. He might not be able to predict his brothers particular dark humor of the day but he could predict without fail that it would be dry and sarcastic.

Was it really routine he was so opposed to of late?

He couldn’t say.

Something in him couldn’t seem to rest and the regularity of his life was causing an uneasy tempo in his veins.

He couldn’t say why.

He was just struck with a simple scene at a simple coffee shop with a boy flush with color.

Blue of his eyes that twinkled like the night sky.

Orange of his shirt hidden behind a simple brown apron, glaring to the eyes.

Golden locks of messy hair that bobbed with his motions.

Why did the boy fascinate him so much?

He didn’t seem like one who didn’t know the dance that everyone engaged in to keep the world spinning. Kyle couldn’t say why he thought so. The boy was just dancing to his own tune.

Kyle wanted to dance to that tune too.

Why exactly could he imagine the boy so clearly?

“Kyle, bro, are you going to stop staring at the waiter any time this century or should I start planning the wedding?”

Fuck.

He tried, vainly, to collect himself and face the scrutiny in his brothers eyes. “Was I staring? I was just—“  _ enchanted _ , “—zoning out.”

The waiter began his approach and Kyle wondered if he’d be able to find the words to greet him.

It was definitely the same walk of the postman. The barista. Oddly similar to the mail girl.

For the first time he pondered why he would see the same person in so many different professions over a short period of time.

“Greetings and welcome, what do you dudes want to eat today? I recommend the salads, they are surprisingly really good.” He leaned in like he was telling a secret, that same mischievous sparkle putting stars in his eyes, “Just for the two of you I’ll have them put in extra chicken.”

He marveled briefly as to why the stranger seemed to know exactly what he wanted to order before a word had escaped him.

Ike was less impressed.

“Give me the extra chicken. Don’t bother serving my brother at all.” Ike allowed that sadistic little quirk of his lips that always spelled trouble to grace his face, “All he wants is your number.”

Kyle could always trust his brother to have his back. Or be at his back with a knife. Whichever suited his needs at any given time.

The waiter didn’t miss a beat, “I’d give him more than my number but this is a proper establishment. So that’ll be a caesar salad with extra chicken and a bacon burger the size of your face, right?”

They’d never ordered but Ike nodded as if a verbal exchange had indeed occurred.

He never had found his voice. He wasn’t sure he’d ever find his voice again. The window beside their table informed him that his face was roughly the same shade of his hair.

He never got a chance to receive a number or even tip the waiter for enduring his brothers smarm, because not a minute later that boy haunting his thoughts was rushing out of the back, barely ripping off his apron to leave on the counter, panic on his face and a phone to his ear.

Concern replaced abject horror and he worried about it for the rest of the meal.

A part of him wished that he’d run after him.

A part of him hummed beneath the surface with a need to act.

He completed his otherwise un-noteworthy lunch with his brother.

“You should go back there sometime,” Ike said as they left, “You might run into him again.”

Kyle nudged his brother, “What has you so convinced I  _ want _ to? And what the hell was that stunt about his number?”

“Bro,” Ike was looking at him with such despair at his stupidity, Kyle hated when the boy gave him that look. “You were looking at the guy like he’d hung the stars in the fucking sky. You never struck me as the love at first sight kind, but shit, if it quacks like a duck...”

“Shut up, Ike. It’s not like that.”

\--

Mailroom sunshine of the office, Karen McCormick, was in the hospital. Her appendix burst and it was a close call all the way around.

Kyle wasn’t the only person she’d made a good impression on and there was a concentrated effort to buy her some generic get-well presents and a card that everyone had signed.

Everyone put money in the pot for flowers and balloons. Boring and acceptable gifts for a boring and acceptable situation.

Kyle knew there wasn’t a way to make it special but he really had a soft spot for the child. She always had a different answer to the simple daily questions, as though she was answering them sincerely rather than following a script.

There was no helping it though. Kyle decided that the least he could do was to volunteer himself as delivery boy. Maybe he’d stay in the hospital room more than strictly necessary and fill it with some idle chit chat.

When he went to pick up the flowers he ended up spending more of his own money when he spotted a book. Hospital rooms were boring. A book would do her some good.

“Room 201.” The receptionist responded to his inquiry and it built up more of the tension inside him, “Write your name here.”

How many times a day did the receptionist repeat those same words in that same tone?

The world spins and everything is prosperous but nothing changes. Not really. The only actual changes seem to be bad news, like some poor part-timer going into emergency surgery.

He wanted the world to wobble a bit. But in a good way.

The white stale lights of a hospital reception were a poor audience for shaking the world so he settled for signing the form and taking the nametag with a smile and a thank you.

How did anyone manage to fight the tide of normalcy? Kyle knew he could but in that same breath knew he wouldn’t.

Normalcy existed for a reason.

He knocked softly at Karen’s door and her strained voice welcomed him inside.

Hands full of a proper-boring get well card, generic but meaningful flowers, balloons decorated with cheerful slogans, and a book that he’d never read. Kyle entered in hopes of lighting up the day of a sweet kid.

There she was on a bed looking paler than she had any business being and there he was, at her side, and bluebells locked on him with surprise etched into his features.

Kyle was pretty sure his face mirrored it.

Karen didn’t seem to notice, “Mr. Broflovski!” She was smiling but there was a pain at the corner of it and Kyle hoped she was getting enough pain killers, “What brings you here?”

“The…” his voice was drier than he expected and he had to swallow, lifting the gifts helpfully. “Everyone at the firm is worried about you. We thought we should, urm, get you something.”

There was such honest sunshine in both the faces and Kyle realized why she’d been so familiar to him.

The barista, mailman, and waiter stood up and relieved him of some of the weight in his arms, smiling with that twinkle that threatened to stop the world on its axis and kick it to the sun. “That’s super cool of you guys! And here I was, worried that Karen didn’t get along with her coworkers.” He chided himself playfully while placing the flowers on her counter delicately, “I should have known that no one can hate perfection.”

She giggled and held up a fist that the boy bumped thoughtlessly, “You know it.” There was a bit of swagger to her tone that Kyle hadn’t heard before.

Suddenly there was a hand in front of him and he realized he’d lapsed into silence to stare again. He mentally thanked any otherworldly force might exist that Ike wasn’t here to mock him for it.

“Name’s Kenny,” he offered cheerfully, casually. “Thanks for taking care of my baby sis at work.”

Kyle held the hand numbly, “Kyle.” He returned weakly, “She’s a pleasure to work with.”

He realized, somewhere in the back of his mind, that there was nothing particularly special about the way Kenny spoke or walked, he was just the sort of guy that went at his own pace.

All the same it was a pace that Kyle wanted to be a part of.

The handshake was firm and familiar, similar to Karen’s, and the eyes were sparkling with that special brand of Kenny’s sky, and Kyle dimly acknowledged that they were both staring and neither had let go of the others hand.

It felt longer than it probably was but by the time the grip was relinquished and they’d awkwardly parted, Karen was giving her brother a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

Kyle wanted to maybe die in a ditch.

Instead he gifted the book and made his escape.

\--

His car needed work.

The engine was making one of those sounds that can make a person wonder if it had been replaced with a ticking time bomb and his brake pads had seen better days. He admitted heartily to his own inexpertise at the matter and happily would leave it to the professionals.

Two days after that mortifying moment in the hospital room and he’d yet to have another moment of seeing the world bump on its axis since then. Boring greetings in a boring office.

Even getting his car checked was supposed to be an unmemorable moment in time.

“Broflovski! My dude, what car related disaster brings you to this humble mechanic?”

There he was.

Swagger to his step, a curve on his lips, and that familiar misstep in the dance.

“How many jobs do you have?” He ended up bursting instead of answering. It was a question he couldn’t help but puzzle over.

Kenny didn’t miss this and changed the conversation from a simple two-step to a tango, “Currently? About six I think. I like to keep busy.” He leaned on the hood of Kyle’s car and there was no warning, “So, you, me, Friday night at a cheap diner? How about it, Broflovski?”

Kyle didn’t dance the tango.

“Excuse me?”

For a second, just a moment, unease flickered on that face that always seemed so sure and Kyle wanted to see more.

He wanted to see it all.

“So what can I do you for? Oil change?”

Clink-clanks of metal in the shop and conversation that can be found at any workplace echoed through his brain. The red sedan that looked totaled in the corner of his eye and the oil puddled on the ground not too far off. The tools Kenny had abandoned to greet him and the normal flow of the universe.

The universe had its own way of running and every day was the same in its own weird way.

And Kyle wanted it to change. He realized he wanted to be the one to change it.

“Friday night. That nice café off of Main. And you never did give me your number.”

The humdrum of the regular everyday pittered out at the flush of blood that rushed to Kenny’s face and the slight stammer in his voice as he grappled to find a pen and Kyle realized that perhaps the guy wasn’t quite as confident as he looked.

That was okay though.

Kyle was twice as confident than he looked.

\--

“Welcome to Tweaks Bros, may I take your order.”

“Please, I need something to wake me up. I had to be in court five minutes ago and I need fucking caffeine dammit.” He hadn’t looked up from his phone, texting furiously like someone’s life depended on it, “I’m sorry, please just give me something strong. I am going to  _ kill _ my fucking boss for this.”

On a forgettable Wednesday afternoon an angry redhead rocked the world off its axis.

Like a breath of fresh air. A sincere and genuine honesty that wasn’t cruel, just frustrated with the monotone elevator music of life that occasionally caught the listener by surprise.

It would normally have been a troublesome order to accommodate but the fire in the man's voice made up for it. The disruption to a humdrum reality.

Kenny kind of loved it.

“I got just the thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> my attempt at love at first sight lol

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Evening Effulgence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14092512) by [panaceaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/panaceaa/pseuds/panaceaa)




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